03/05/08
Redskin (1929)
Victor Schertzinger
Historically important film from Paramount was the studios last silent film but it was also their first attempt at Technicolor. The majority of the film is in Technicolor but there are a few sequences, which are in B&W and this was done after the film's backers realized that it was costing too much to shoot in color so they immediately switched over to B&W. It's also worth noting that the film was originally shown in a 70mm process known as Magnascope but that version is now lost and all that survives is the 35mm version.
Richard Dix plays Wing Foot, a Navajo Indian who is forced as a child to attend a white man's school where he is constantly harassed due to this race. It's at this school where he meets the eventual love of his life, Corn Blossom (Julie Carter), a Pueblo Indian. After the harassment gets to be too much, Wing Foot returns home to see that his people have now turned their backs on him, calling him a Redskin because he's not one of theirs anymore. Even worse is that his love for Corn Blossom is causing problems in her tribe because the Navajo and Pueblo tribes hate one another. As you can tell, race is a very big factor in this film, which I think bites off a little bit more than it can chew. There are a lot of difficult questions asked and the film offers up some unique thoughts but the really bad ending comes out of no where and happens much to fast for all these questions to really be answered. The film runs 82-minutes but I think it needed to be at least twenty-minutes longer just to try and tie up some of the loose ends. Even with that said, this is a very solid little picture that manages to be funny at times but for the most part things are handled very seriously. Dix turns in a wonderful performance as the man caught between two races and another battle with another tribe. This is the first time I've seen him in a silent picture and he actually comes off very good. Carter is decent in her role but not up to Dix's league. I've read that Louise Brooks shot three weeks of footage before being fired and going to Germany so it's a shame she wasn't able to finish the film. There's some very nice cinematography and there's even some nice suspense during the ending even though it's pretty stupid and far fetched. The Technicolor process on this film looked incredible and really seemed a lot better than some of the early Technicolor films that would come out in the early 1930s. While this is a historically important film, it isn't as great as I was hoping for but there's still plenty to enjoy here.
Bud's Recruit (1918)
King Vidor
Historically interesting WW1 short is the earliest surviving film from legendary director King Video. Also worth noting is that this film was made through Judge Willie Brown, a former justice of the Utah juvenile court and later founder of Boys Cities, which would house troubled kids. That was long before the more famous Boys Town but Boys Cities would eventually run out of money and be closed and Brown would eventually be murdered by a mistress in 1931. This short tells the story of a young kid too young to enlist and his coward older brother who will stop at nothing to dodge the draft. The younger brother sets up his own recruits and does his own training hoping that somehow he can join the war. This comedy has one big downfall and it's the fact that it's just not very funny. On the technical side of things this is an extremely well made film and you can see the talent of young Video seven years before his biggest film,
The Big Parade. The cast includes kids from Boys Cities, which was interesting to see. The story has its heart in the right place but it just never really works and I feel this probably would have been better handled as a drama.
Wicked Women (1977)
Jess Franco
The police break into an apartment where they find a dead couple who appear to have been murdered. Upstairs is another woman (Lina Romay), naked and unable to talk from shock. the woman is sent to a mental hospital for women where a doctor (Michael Maien) and his assistant (Nanda Van Bergen) try to make her speak and tell them where the diamonds the dead couple were smuggling are hidden. Oh yeah, there's also a maniac dressed in black running through the hospital killing the women. This Franco outing got off to a pretty good start but things start to go downhill around the thirty-minute mark and for the most part everything that happens afterwards is pretty slow and dull. The film only runs 76-minutes but it feels much longer. Romay turns in a pretty good performance playing the silent character, which she is very good at doing in most films. The supporting cast is pretty good with Monica Swinn also having a small role. There's some nice visuals in the film and the music score also manages to be quite good. The film takes place in a women's hospital so you can expect several lesbian scenes including the highlight of the movie when five women make love to Romay when she first comes to the hospital.
03/06/08
Virginian, The (1914)
Cecil B. DeMille
Dustin Farnum plays a cowboy from Virginia who goes out West with his best friend but a woman (Winifred Kingston) comes between them. To make things even worst, the best friend gets caught up with some castle thieves at the same time the Virginian is hired to bring the gang down. This was DeMille's second feature coming after the same year's
The Squaw Man, which he would go onto remake twice. This is certainly a step down from his previous film but there's still some mild entertainment to be had here. The young DeMille hadn't came down with any of his trademark style at this point in his career but he does a good job handling the story and keeping it moving. The film runs a short 53-minutes and that time goes by real fast without any down time. The cast is pretty good and that includes leading man Farnum who was also in the director's first film. There really isn't too much action until the end but there's still some fine humor to keep the film moving.
How They Rob Men in Chicago (1900)
Wallace McCutcheon
Biograph film was made for their Mutoscope machines but eventually played in theaters after becoming a favorite of movie crowds. The film tells pretty much what the title says as we see a man get robbed and eventually a cop shows up. This is a pretty interesting short that takes place in front of a single cardboard set and lasts just 25-seconds. That's just long enough because the film plays two jokes, which I won't reveal, yet both are very funny with the final joke being downright hysterical. I've watched somewhere near a thousand of these early films the past several years and this one here is one of the gems of this era.
Black Hand, The (1906)
Walter McCutcheon, Jr.
This Biograph short is credited as being the first gangster picture ever made and it was a big hit back in the day because it was filmed just a few days after the real event took place. Two gangsters blackmail a rich butcher threatening to kidnap his daughter if he doesn't pay them one thousand dollars. The butcher refuses and soon his daughter is kidnapped so it's up to NYC's finest to try and find her. I had heard a lot of good things about this film and I was expecting all the hype to leave me disappointed but that wasn't the case as this is one of the best Biograph films I've seen that wasn't directed by D.W. Griffith. The ending when the police come to rescue the girl contains some nice suspense and the robbery of the butcher store was also very well done. The story is quite strong and apparently stayed close to the real case, which was an interesting one. Fans of the gangster genre will certainly want to check this one out.
From the Submerged (1912)
Theodore Wharton
A homeless man (E.H. Calvert) is about to kill himself when a young woman (Ruth Stonehouse) tells him that God hasn't forgotten about him. The man then goes to a food line where he gets word that his father is dying and wants to see him and this changes his fate as well as the woman who saved him. This is a pretty sweet short that manages to be quite uplifting in its simple story. I'm sure this film hit home very hard back when it was released but its message stil holds strong in today's time. The performances from the two leads are very good and the direction is quite strong throughout. Some might say the ending is forced but I thought it was quite touching and believable.
Usurer's Grip, The (1912)
Bannister Merwin
Edison short tells the danger of going to a loan shark. A poor couple (Walter Edwin, Gertrude McCoy) is at the end of the line because their young daughter is ill and dying so they go to a loan shark (Charles Ogle) but this ends up hurting them even more. This short plays out like a lot of the films D.W. Griffith was making at the time as it is very sympathetic to the poor while coming down hard on those who take advantage of them. This movie certainly comes off quite melodramatic at times but the story is still very good. What really sets this short apart is the terrific acting from the three leads. Edwin is terrific as the father but it's Ogle who really steals the film as the loan shark. Most will remember Ogle from playing the monster in Edison's 1910 version of
Frankenstein but he is quite a figure here. I was also taken by his physical nature, which is a lot different than what we saw two years earlier in
Frankenstein.
Hope, a Red Cross Seal Story (1912)
No Director Credited
At this time this Edison short was made, Tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in America and this film serves as a warning as well as giving hope that the disease doesn't have to mean death. An elderly man refuses to donate money to a Tuberculosis fund but soon his daughter (Gertrude McCoy) comes down with the disease. This film certainly comes off too dramatic today but at the time of release this was certainly serious stuff. McCoy is very good in her role as is Charles Ogle in his small role. The direction is also quite nice and handles the story well. The film tries to give hope to those with the disease and this also comes off quite well but even with all that said, the film just doesn't come off as powerful as I'm sure it once did.
03/07/08
Cost of Carelessness, The (1913)
No Director Credited
Universal made this film with the co-production of The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company and it's an early safety film warning kids not to play in the streets or jumping on trolley cars. The second part of the fifteen-minute short talks to adults about bad driving and other dangerous habits. As with the legendary traffic safety films of the 1950s, this one here is pretty simple in its message but it doesn't come off quite as campy as some of the later films. I was shocked to see how graphic some of the violence was including one scene where a kid gets ran over by a trolley. You pretty much see his entire body get crushed yet you won't believe the outcome. The film starts to get tiresome towards the end but if you're a fan of this type of movie then this one here is worth checking out.
Lights and Shadows in a City of a Million (1920)
No Director Credited
Ford Motor Company produced this short, which was shown in Detroit theaters prior to feature films. The movie talks about the poor and crippled people in the city that need help from those with money. We see how you can cook them food, donate money and do other jobs to make the poor's life a lot easier to live. This short certainly has its heart in the right place but it comes off pretty badly due to the lack of direction and some campy performances. While watching this seven-minute short I kept asking myself how much Ford was doing to help these people instead of just asking others to help.
